Stephen Maniscalco, radiology technician on the left, walks past a patient in the hallway in Encinitas on Friday, Dec. 1, 2023, in San Diego. Alejandro Tamayo/The San Diego Union-Tribune/TNS
Bill Dixon, 80, lay on a bed between two white fabric dividers in the hallway of the emergency department at Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas Friday, one of 14 patients waiting for an emergency bed to open up.
He had been there for two hours, having come in from his Solana Beach home with chest pain and dizziness, comfortable with the attention he was getting from medical staff, but taken aback by his surroundings.
"This is really not acceptable from a patient perspective," the Solana Beach resident said. "There's really no privacy."
